Thor: The Dark World Review

Thor is one truly badass warrior, but even his trusty hammer, electrifying moves, and a gaggle of armored cohorts to summon into battle can't quite save his latest jaunt from feeling a bit rickety around the edges. On a visual level, Thor: The Dark World is certainly an attractive-looking top-down brawler, which sends you through beautiful 3D environments to smash up evildoers and demonic beasts. Unfortunately, pushy microtransactions and shaky combat break the spell early on.

Diving into each short mission, you'll smash, zap, and bludgeon your way through a nice range of foes across diversely themed worlds. Thor brings a crew of buddies along for the hack-and-slash ride this time around, taking a page from MOBA (multiplayer online battle arena) games, which puts an interesting spin on the chaotic battles. Using rechargeable magic mojo, you can summon lots of different units to your side, from archers and spell-casters to swordsmen and pike-wielders. While they are largely mindless fodder to throw at the unruly hordes you clash with, seeing you don't have any direct control over them, each does have unique strengths and weaknesses against certain enemy types that make them useful in battle. Except, that is, when they get into trouble and clog up the screen. You can also bring allied heroes into battle, but they're pricey to unlock and require rest periods to recuperate between engagements.

Thor himself proves a less-than-ideal leader, thanks to a limited set of moves and iffy touch controls. Tapping enemies to attack proves imprecise when there's more than a couple of baddies in your midst, and trying to maneuver out of danger is just as awkward in the fray. Among the meager handful of basic combat moves at your disposal, throwing your hammer is the least effective, as it rarely goes where you direct it. At least the screen-zapping lightning powers look slick and are fairly devastating.

Despite the combat quirks, it's the aggressive microtransactions that do the most damage to the limited comic movie-based fun on tap here. With three different currencies to juggle, the need to shell out for everything from health potions and weapons to characters and experience upgrades gets a bit much. Falling in battle is particularly painful, however, as it gets pricey to revive yourself without having to restart a stage from scratch.

The bottom line. Good looks and a blockbuster movie tie-in don't save Thor: The Dark World from its sloppy battles and lame freemium model.